Most drone companies are one pilot and a marketing site. Productions find out which is which on the day.
New Mexico's incentive program and the studio build-out made this a base rather than a location stop. A drone company working here has to understand where federal, state and tribal land begins and ends, because that boundary decides what is legal far more often than the airspace does.
CineDrones has been a working aerial department since 2013, with the depth to put multiple units on a show and the insurance and permitting infrastructure a studio production office needs before it can hire you at all. We handle it end to end: airspace authorization, permits, the shoot itself, and delivery in whatever format post is expecting.
The New Mexico Film Office coordinates statewide and is unusually accessible for a state film office. Federal and tribal land each carry their own authorities, and that distinction matters more here than in most markets.
The Sunport shares its field with Kirtland Air Force Base, which puts military traffic into the same Class C airspace as everything else and makes coordination less routine than the airport size suggests. Get outside the metro and the airspace opens dramatically, which is much of the appeal.
We shoot the Sandias, the high desert, the studio campuses, and the mesas — and we travel. CineDrones works nationwide, so if your production is basing in Albuquerque and shooting somewhere else entirely, that is a normal week for us.
A full toolkit rather than one aircraft: cinema payloads, FPV, heavy lift, prop and stunt builds, and aerial lighting.
Our aerial units have worked on Ozark, Jack Ryan, Bosch, Mayans M.C., SEAL Team, NCIS: New Orleans, Fear the Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Modern Family, 9-1-1, Goliath, The Resident, Raising Dion, Castle Rock, Doctor Sleep and Chef's Table, for Netflix, Amazon, Apple, HBO, Hulu, Showtime, Sony, CBS, AMC, MTV and Bravo. See the work →
It is a procurement process, not a creative one. Risk management reviews your insurance, safety record and operating procedures before a production office is allowed to hire you. We have been through it with the majors since 2013.
Yes. Multi-unit days are normal for us, and having a second aircraft on standby is often cheaper than losing an hour to a battery swap or a downed aircraft.
A $5M aviation liability policy, with certificates issued to the production naming whoever your legal department needs named. That is usually the first question a UPM asks and the one that ends most conversations with smaller vendors.
DRONE COMPANY — OTHER MARKETS: Atlanta Austin Chicago Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami New Orleans New York Salt Lake City